As Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) gears up to announce its earnings for their second quarter of 2012 in ten days or so projections are still flooding in about the sales the company may have made in the first quarter of this year particularly in the company’s iPhone and iPad flagship products. The report came from Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray. The latest projections in quarter one sees Apple slightly underperforming on iPad sales while outperforming expectations on sales of its iPhone range. The forecasts are mainly positive and point to an as of yet bright future for Apple.
Sales of the iPad may have been slightly down earlier in the quarter as anticipation ripened for the release of the company’s new version of the device. Fewer people are likely to have purchased an iPad 2 in the weeks leading up to the release of the new device, these figures may have been balanced out by the massive sales of the updated tablet in its first days of the shelves however. The company is projected to have sold around twelve million iPads in the months between January and March, a figure much higher than last years 4.69 million estimated tablet sales. The tablet market is still young and growing rapidly which will give Apple a boost in sales for many years to come as the tablet density in the market increases with Apple as the market’s leader. iPad sales will certainly be a strength for the company going forward.
Apple is still gaining huge dividends of its iPhone product which is gaining more and more traction in the smart phone market and is especially benefiting from growth internationally. The company’s phone is continuing to grow in market share and compete more effectively even with much less expensive phones offered by Google’s android. iPhone sales for the first quarter are forecast to overshoot Wall Street’s predictions by almost 10% coming in a 33 million rather than 30.5 million and those figures will continue to increase into the future as emerging markets have begun to give a high level of demand for the premiere product.
These results also showed lower than expected growth for Macs though by a figure of around one hundred thousand. The full report maintains a $910 price target for the company in the next twelve months and sees the company continuing its blistering run in the markets despite the lower than expected iPad sales. The report commented on Apple’s major turning points to come in 2012 naming them as the release of the iPhone 5 some time this summer or Autumn and the expectation that the company will release a full television late this year. If the company is to do such a thing it will certainly buoy the stock price and lead to a frenzy in sales when the company puts the product on the shelves. Apple will announce its earnings along with sales figures for its devices on the 24th of April. Investors will be confident after these most recent projections of the company’s sales.
